Crossed the Line
by Al Harris
Summary: About a hundred years ago, when Beetlejuice was a lot worse, he got on the bad side of one of the Big Wigs of the Neitherworld, by killing his entire family. Now, that big-wig crosses the line by locking Beetlejuice away, and forcing him to watch Lydia's tragic life without him. The Ghost With the Most will show them just what that title REALLY means...
1. Big Trouble In the Little Neitherworld

Crossed the Line

a Beetlejuice fanfiction

One: Big Trouble in the Little Neitherworld...

Lydia Deetz was a strange and unusual sixteen-year-old girl.

Trailed closely by a ghastly, mouldering figure in a striped suit, she slammed the door to her room, thankful that her companion had gotten them out of yet another jam... and, as usual, one he had personally caused. "I swear, babes, that wasn't my fault!" her frightening friend explained, eyes wide with his typical fear that, yet again, he would get caught in another scam gone wrong.

"For once, I believe you, Beej!" Lydia breathlessly replied. "You've pulled a lot of corny practical jokes in your time, but these were just..."

"Not my style?" Beetlejuice, the self-proclaimed "Ghost With the Most", returned. "My scent-iments exactly!" he continued, as a stink-bomb went off on the other side of his breathing buddy's door. "Scuzzo's behind this, I just NOSE it!"

As if on cue, Beetlejuice's nose leapt from his face and grabbed Lydia's best camera. Before either of the pair could catch it, the nose ran through a tiny door that had suddenly materialized in her own. Within seconds, several flashes could be seen penetrating the cracks in the door, and the clown-corpse could be heard fumbling, stumbling, and shouting curses that would make a sailor blush. The nose ran back in, somehow accompanied by one of Beetlejuice's own eyes: he had been careful to close the eyelids over his empty socket, in spite of how strong Lydia's stomach was. "What can I tell ya, Lyds?" he asked, bragging yet again. "My NOSE has an EYE for photography!"

Lydia giggled, taking the camera from Beetlejuice's nose; her giggle followed by a wrinkled nose of her own, as she realized she'd smashed her own hand into the snot that covered her device. "Maybe, but he's also really good at RUNNING," she replied cleverly. "I'll take this to my dark-room and start developing the film... I have a feeling you'll need all the evidence you can get, if you're going to weasel your way out of whatever trouble Scuzzo's trying to get you into this time!"

Beetlejuice rolled his eyes three times around in his head. "Let's cut out the middle-man, babes!" he suggested, as a butcher-knife sliced a man-shape out of his midsection. The tiny Beetlejuice fell out, shook it's head vigorously, and leapt back into the hole, solidifying itself with him. "We can take the camera down to Juno, and she'll file it away in that weird system of her's!"

Wryly, Lydia asked, "You mean, her FILING system?"

Now, it was Beetlejuice's turn to wrinkle his nose. "Yeah, that stupid order-kick she's been on for about 500 years."

In a mockery of the night they got 'married', he offered Lydia his hand. "Shall we?" he asked.

Lydia smirked, reminded of that awful, awkward night that had somehow become the start of their relationship. "Of course." She took his hand.

BEETLEJUICE!

BEETLEJUICE!

BEETLEJUICE!

Instantly, they appeared in the Neitherworld, at the ominous fortress that housed Juno's office. "So, we just pop inside, drop the evidence off, and pop back up to your place," Beetlejuice repeated... trying his best to shake the subtle feeling that something wasn't quite right.

"Yeah, let's go," Lydia said with a smile. She neither felt the ominous feeling herself, nor did she have any reservations about visiting Beetlejuice's former boss.

Once inside the file-room, the flattened clerk noticed Lydia. His eyes widened, beyond their usually bugged-out look. He stopped in mid-track. "Ms. Deetz!" he said, looking around with clear worry on his face. "You can't be here! Not now!"

"Cut the crap, Roadkill," Beetlejuice demanded, eyebrows slightly furrowed in deeper apprehension. "We're just here to drop something off at Juno's place."

"That's what I'm talking about!" the flat man replied. "That's why she can't be here! Juno no longer works for the Department!"

"What are you talking about?!" Beetlejuice asked, suspicious. There were only three ways out of the Department: you either did such a good job that they kicked you out for being too proficient; you found a way around the usual rules, like Beetlejuice did, and went into business for yourself, while still remaining on the Government's payroll; or...

As the look of realization flashed in Beetlejuice's eyes - combined with some semblance of sympathetic grief for the woman who had begrudgingly become liek a mother to him, - and Lydia started to hug close to his arm in that frightened way she occasionally had, Roadkill looked off to the side. "Yeah... the big-wigs stopped by, and had her clear out her office. It's serious this time, Juice. You'll wanna slip away as soon as you can, too..."

Unable to move too much, the flat man couldn't whisper too quietly, but he still tried his best. "Word around the steno-pool is, this is all about you."

Lydia looked up at Beetlejuice, nearly panicking. "Beej, let's get out of here," she pleaded.

Beetlejuice shook his head. "Babes, as much as I can't stand Juno, she's like the mom I never had. I've got to find out what happened!"

Almost instantly, Lydia's skin turned a soft grey, and she and Beetlejuice were dressed as janitors. "That should work," he said. This must have been extremely serious, because he wasn't his usual jovial self. "We'll slip in, snoop around, and pop out, before anybody knows we're-"

Beetlejuice didn't even have the chance to finish explaining his plan, when they were suddenly surrounded by a group of chilling creatures in stark white masks and crimson cloaks. For the first time in years, Beetlejuice swore. "At least lemme send the girl back," he pleaded.

One of the monstrosities shook what could only be presumed to be it's head. A dark, almost clearly-formed claw poked out of the cloak, and pointed at both of them. Then, it indicated a dark, foggy mirror.

Beetlejuice looked into Lydia's eyes; for a moment, he looked almost pained with worry. The look quickly passed, and Beetlejuice put on his best car-salesman face. "Don't worry, Lyds," he reassured, "Nothing's gonna happen to you."

Lydia smiled mournfully, hoping Beetlejuice wouldn't be able to read her, like he usually could. "Yeah, of course. I believe you, Beej."

Lydia didn't get her wish. As they walked through the mirror, Beetlejuice knew what she was feeling, and it made his dead, shriveled, rotten heart sink like a stone. For the first time since he had formed in the Neitherworld, he was regretting every rotten thing he'd ever done.


	2. Butterfly Effect

Crossed the Line

a Beetlejuice fanfiction

Two: Butterfly Effect...

Beetlejuice, the self-proclaimed "Ghost With the Most", wasn't always the jovial, relatively harmless poltergeist he was after he and Lydia became acquainted. In fact, there was a reason Juno was put in charge of him...

Beetlejuice used to be known as Betelgeuse, and everybody knew he was neither to be trusted, nor to be disrespected. Somehow, this one particular soul had amassed and accrued so much power, such sway over the ever-tenuous rules of the Neitherworld, that he could easily conquer the whole of Afterlife itself. Thankfully, Betelgeuse had no such inclinations. To everyone else's horror, however, he had quite an inclination for wreaking havoc. Betelgeuse always felt like he'd been stolen from the mortal coil long before his time was truly up, and he meant to make everyone else, in both the land of the living and the world of the dead, as angry about his untimely demise as he still was.

Every time it rained frogs or stones, every plague that swept Europe and America, every insurrection that cost some important potentates their heads, Betelgeuse was behind it all. There was no wretched horror in which he didn't stick his blood-stained fingers. Things were even worse in the Neitherworld, if you can believe it. Routinely, he pulled horrible pranks on other spirits, exposing them to the very fears they avoided in life and the very reasons for their deaths. Naturally, you can imagine how traumatizing this was for them, to be faced with the constant reminder of their life's extinguishment. The Neitherworld deserts were flooded with lava. The trees switched from a stony, petrified material to electrified metal constructs, sparking lightning in random directions. Oceans were filled with the filth from Rome's oldest sewers and the flaming garbage of the valley of Hinnom. The skies in the Neitherworld didn't rain anything as safe as frogs or stones; instead, they rained knives, swords, flails and warhammers, and the occasional anvil. Betelgeuse would pit armies of unwilling denizens against each-other in constant fights to the death.

One of these denizens Betelgeuse crossed was one of the "big wigs" of the Neitherworld: Johann Adam Weishaupt. Adam, as he was usually known, watched in horror as Betelgeuse released the Spanish Flu on the citizens in Germany... killing many members of his own family, especially those closest to him. Understandably, Adam was furious. He watched, helpless, as his family's children started coughing up the bright red blood so unique to this strain of influenza, complaining of seeing a decaying corpse in a brown and red ferryman's uniform dancing about their beds. The symptoms were chalked up to hysteria, brought on by the illness. None of them were allowed to know that their tormentor truly was the one they saw. Betelgeuse's wretched glee, as he watched each and every victim succumb to the torment of his horrid disease, was too much for Adam to bear. At that very moment, as he heard 8-year-old Elizsa call out to him, the fever spiking to inhuman levels of heat within her body, literally cooking her brain, Adam made a vow: one way or another, Betelgeuse would pay... dearly.

Placed in a crushing stone stockade, surrounded by concertina-wire fencing, sat Lydia Deetz and Beetlejuice, awaiting the verdict. The trial had been interminable. One by one, a seemingly-endless string of plaintiffs and witnesses, even including the reluctant ones... such as Jacques LeLean and Ginger. Even the Monster Across the Street was a little apprehensive about testifying against Beetlejuice and his best friend: not because he particularly cared for Beetlejuice, but because the situation was so dire, and because Lydia was involved. Every time another testimony was given, every time another cross-examination took place, Beetlejuice would stretch his head around to Lydia and rest it between her shoulder and her neck, and quietly reply, "I'm so sorry, babes. I should've known this is how things would turn out. It's all my fault." Lydia would try to reassure Beetlejuice. Then, the Warden would come over; and, using a device that tapped into Beetlejuice's own power, cause both suspects to feel the pain of billions of volts of electric glass burrowing into each and every nociceptor in their bodies... or, in Beetlejuice's case, burrowing into his spirit. This was torment enough for Beetlejuice, who saw the effect his power was having on the girl who had made him feel truly alive for the first time in well over 600 years. The trial, let-alone the torment of his dear friend, made him realize - not for the first time in his afterlife, - that Lydia was the only one who could see through his vile, wretched veneer to the kind of man she alone thought still existed.

After much deliberation on the bench, some expressions of shock that were clear in the body-language of the other big-wigs, and a few heads shaking, Adam stood before Beetlejuice. "You have been weighed in the balance," he began. "You have been measured. You have been found absolutely wanting. Beetlejuice, your crimes against both humanity and spiritkind are too much for this conclave to ignore any longer. We have decided on a punishment for you, the Deetz's, and Juno." Removing his mask, with an eerie sneer, he remarked, "Justice will finally bring the Sword of Damocles crashing down upon you, cleaving you in twain."

In perfect German, Beetlejuice replied, "Long time, no see, Herr Weishaupt. How's the family holding up? No need to thank me for reuniting you all."

Juno shot Beetlejuice a dirty look. "Great idea, Juice," she remarked, "Taunt the big-wigs."

Beetlejuice looked at Juno mournfully. "I gotta be me," he replied, hanging his head.

One of the other big-wigs stood. "Beetlejuice, have you anything to say before sentencing?"

Beetlejuice was freed from his prison, unable to return to Lydia's side. Juno and Lydia both regarded Beetlejuice with expressions of pain: Juno, because she could see how badly this hurt the lost little boy buried inside the horrid con-corpse; Lydia, because, even knowing her friend's past, she was still appalled at the charges against him.

Beetlejuice looked up at the big-wigs, and for the first time in well over six centuries, felt a visible sense of remorse. "Look, I know I ain't exactly Spirit of the Year material. Hell, I've hurt damned near everybody in this courtroom today, at some point or other in my afterlife. I'm perfectly willing to pay for my crimes, but Lyds hasn't done shit to any of you, besides being a good person! She don't deserve to be punished for what I did! Put me on the Rack, draw and quarter me, fuck, exorcise me... but don't punish Lydia. If you got any decency in your hearts, you won't punish her."

Adam stood again. "Decency?!" he asked, his voice getting louder. "You, of all people, want to talk about DECENCY?! Was ANYTHING you've done DECENT?!"

One of the other big-wigs put a hand on Adam's shoulder, and Adam regained his composure, but the look of pure hatred was palpable in his eyes.

"Juno, for your compliance with Beetlejuice in covering up his crimes, you are hereby sentenced to a new post: you shall be required to set up a branch of the Department in Sandworm-Land on Titan. Lydia Deetz, the court briefly considered a harsher punishment for your use of Beetlejuice and his powers, and for the danger you could have posed to others; however, taking into account your naievete, and the fact that no one was seriously hurt, you and your family's punishment will be far less severe: every reference to Beetlejuice, the Neitherworld, and any of the Neitherworld denizens, shall be permanently erased from all your memories. Your family shall be under the impression that you, alone - with absolutely no help from anyone or anything else, - wreaked all the havoc for which Beetlejuice was responsible."

Lydia couldn't hold back. "What about the Maitlands?!" she cried.

"The Maitlands did summon Beetlejuice, yes," replied Adam, "but they were ignorant of his crimes. Since learning of his crimes, they have been against him: beside which point, if you recall, they were granted freedom from their haunt."

Finally, vitriol dripping from his words, Adam turned to Beetlejuice. "For your crimes against the citizens of the Neitherworld and the Otherworld, living, dead and undead, in the former life and afterlife, you are sentenced to a thousand years in the Lost Souls room. There, your powers shall be rendered relatively useless by the environment of the room."

The other judges got up to leave. As they left, however, Adam slipped another paper into the docket, granting himself the right to show Beetlejuice Lydia's condition at any time he saw fit.

Mournfully, all the Neitherworld denizens looked back at Beetlejuice and Lydia. Beetlejuice was being hauled in one direction, Lydia in another, and Juno in still another. Juno remained silent, but Lydia wept openly. Beetlejuice's arms stretched to wrap around her. "Forget the long arm of the law, babes," he said, "I'd go to any lengths to comfort you..."

Those were Beetlejuice's last words to Lydia Deetz, before he was given "the Boot" - a gargantuan boot, which swung down from the ceiling and kicked Beetlejuice into the Lost Souls room, - and the door slammed shut. Deep within it's recesses, Beetlejuice's juice still glowed from within him, but he couldn't get out. He tried for a whole year, before he realized there was no use. A year later, the screen appeared. By then, Beetlejuice had begun to atrophy and rot even worse...

... and, that's when his true Hell began...

... until one night, when it was just too much for him to take.


	3. Knowing That I Should be Wary

Crossed the Line

a Beetlejuice fanfiction

Three: Knowing That I Should be Wary...

Swallowtail marched down the halls of the Department, scowling. He'd heard about what Adam had done. No judge had been so stupid! There was a reason Beetlejuice hadn't been sent to the Lost Souls room in the six centuries he'd been around, and it pertained to his former life...

The door to Adam's office flew open, and a chill unlike even the Neitherworld could produce ushered in the huge, winged, imposing figure known as Swallowtail. The fallen angel wrapped his hand around Adam's neck and lifted him above his desk. "**DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT YOU'VE DONE?!**" he roared, his voice like the war-cry of a battalion of bloodthirsty warriors. "You've sent Betelgeuse - the most _DANGEROUS_, _VOLATILE_ creatures I've ever known, into the **LOST SOULS ROOM!**"

Adam pushed back against Swallowtail's grip and freed himself, claw-marks etched deep in his skin. "I know _exactly_ what I've done, demon. I've taken the opportunity to repay that poltergeist for all he's done! Have you no idea about what he's done to the citizens?! To the government?! DO YOU NOT CARE?!"

_DO YOU NOT CARE?!_

Swallowtail's golden eyes flashed with a potent mixture of memory, regret, and indignation. "I care, you foolish creature," he responded, the alabastair of his skin dimming with his mood. "Had I cared not, he would be merely another ghost. Had I cared not, I would have done nothing to undo the damage he's done. He deserves his freedom."

Fire erupted from Adam's scalp. "**HE DESERVES THE SECOND DEATH, FOR WHAT HE'S DONE TO MY FAMILY!**" he shrieked, cracking the stained glass of his windows.

Unperturbed, Swallowtail stared down into Adam's eyes. "What have you done to him?" he asked. "I know this is personal to you. Beyond your violence, what have you done to him?"

Adam's cold, cruel eyes taunted Swallowtail. "See for yourself," he offered, opening the door that led to the corridor beyond.

Through the winding corridor, Adam and Swallowtail traveled. The janitor stared in awe at Swallowtail: it wasn't customary for a devil to visit incarcerated spirits...

_In the Room..._

Beetlejuice sat, curled up on what felt like a floor, weeping. He hadn't felt so powerless since the night he'd been offered the Faustian deal by Swallowtail...

_Centuries before..._

Steven sat, surrounded by the reposing corpses of his family, bawling his eyes out. The Plague had taken a long time in affecting them, but it finally took his little sister, Elizabeth. She had only been eight years old. It was three months, two weeks, and three days before her ninth birthday. She'd been the family's miracle-child, born to his mother and father when they were in their 70's. The family of serfs always had found a way to survive, whether it be the ravages of plague and famine, or the icy frosts of the winter. Though the little angel meant another mouth to feed, Steven's devout parents saw her as a gift from the Lord above. They lavished on her all the attention they'd never given their son, who had turned to a life of crime to provide for the struggling family. Steven didn't mind. He knew his lot in life; he was just grateful that he could keep his beloved sister from suffering his fate.

Then, the Plague visited their home. The Reaper had left his marks all over the family. First, the mother, ever the social butterfly, came down with the sickness. Her husband, the strong, silent type, who balked at his son's con-games and thefts, could no longer refuse his son's ill-gotten gains. They paid for an apothecary's services, but even the wizened old gentleman couldn't cure her. Then, the father took ill. Steven moved back into the family hovel, refusing to let his sister shoulder the burden of caring for their parents all by herself.

When Liz began coughing up blood, Steven held her close. He begged and pleaded with all the powers of Heaven and Hell to take him, instead. Alas, he didn't get as much as a sniffle. Over the past few weeks, he'd been doing his best to nurse his sister back to health. When he knew her time was up, he took the last of his money and bought as much ale as he could. At the very least, he could get her drunk, so she wouldn't feel so much agony in death.

Now, as he sat by his sister's corpse, drinking himself into what he could only hope would be a slow, painful death for his impotence, he wondered when he'd die... or, if he would be so lucky. He didn't mind watching his family from Hell's pits, as long as he could see them enjoying the best Heaven had to offer.

Suddenly, a brilliant light flashed. Swallowtail had appeared, in all his glory. _It is time, mortal. I must take them to the hereafter._

Steven stumbled to his feet. "S-So," he slurred, "You're the one who... one who... did this thing!"

Unsure of what he could possibly do to this being, Steven launched himself forward, brandishing a boot-dagger...

... and, stabbed through the immaterial Swallowtail, who knocked him back against the wall of the house.

Undaunted, Steven continued attacking the angel. "IS NOT FAIR!" he finally cried, dropping to his knees, soaking the dirt with his tears. "She was only eight!"

Swallowtail smirked. _I can return her to life, but it will cost you dearly._

Shocked, Steven stared at Swallowtail for a moment. Then, when the words finally sank in, he clutched at the devil's tunic. "Please! I'll do anything!" he begged.

... and so, Steven died. He was sentenced to Hell, where he was tormented in unimaginable ways, until he succumbed to the temptation to punish as he was punished. Satan, himself, freed Steven, and forced the soul deep into the burning pits of Tartarus...

From the fires of Hell itself, Steven was baptized in the Devil's unholy, blasphemous baptism, as the spirit Betelgeuse. However, after his rebirth, Betelgeuse proved to be too much for Hell to handle, threatening to split it wide open with his abysmal antagonism of spirits and demons alike. That was why Satan cast Betelgeuse out of the deepest pits and up into the Neitherworld, where he made his new home. The suffering of others strengthened him; and, unable to resist the call to abuse the living, Betelgeuse found ways around the rules of the Neitherworld, returning to Earth frequently to wreak havoc. Soon, Betelgeuse was so powerful, he could have conquered the whole Neitherworld himself, with ease.

_Present day..._

Beetlejuice had been forced to watch a series of tragic misfortunes befall his beloved Lydia. She may not have remembered him, but he remembered her, and he always would. Seeing the look on her face when, even without his influence, a plague of termites had made the house look like it was made of Swiss cheese... seeing the tears in her eyes when her family blamed her, which clearly flowed from a broken heart... seeing her cast out, like a leper, to fend for herself... it was too much. Beetlejuice raged and ranted for the first few years, as he watched her work the street-corners in New York, being ravaged by countless men. He clawed at his skin and gnashed his teeth, when he saw her willingly passing herself around at parties, like some kind of perverse present. He shrieked until he lost his voice, when he was forced to watch, helpless, as she shot up for the first time... and then the second, and then the third, and so on. He threw himself through the screen, which showed her on the streets, begging for spare change, offering blow-jobs to total strangers to earn her wages... only to see it from the other side.

Day by day, Adam would visit, and taunt Beetlejuice. "It's too bad you cannot rescue her, eh?" he would ask. "What do you think would happen, anyway? She would never recognize you. Even if she did, she would remember that _you_ are the reason her life is so wretched, in the first place. You only have yourself to blame, monster. Soak up her sorrow, revel in her revulsion, celebrate her calamity... as you've done to so many before her."

At first, Beetlejuice would reply, "YOU JUST WAIT, UNTIL I GET OUTTA HERE! I'LL TEAR YA OPEN, FROM STEM TO STERN!" As time progressed, he'd continue with similar threats. Then, he would ask questions: "Why would you let this happen to a girl like Lyds?!" "Is she okay now?!" "What do ya want me to do, to get outta here early?!" The questions turned into pleading. "I'll do anything, if you'll just lemme outta here, so I can rescue her!" Even the other souls seemed to take pity on the poltergeist, who had taken to wailing her name between fits of sobbing.

Adam threw open the door. "Watch this," he said, as the screen reappeared. Beetlejuice, who looked like he'd aged the full six centuries he'd existed, looked reluctant to watch, but he couldn't look away. He refused to let her suffer alone.

"Beetlejuice," Adam called, "Did you know that Lydia has found a way to return, three different times?"

Beetlejuice looked up, bulging eyes widened in horror. "No... can't be... only if..."

Soon, more scenes from her life began flashing before his eyes. "The first time was just after she left. Pay attention, as the young, upstart gang of ruffians drags her into a hovel, rapes her literally all night long, and shoot her when she tries to escape..."

Beetlejuice cringed, hearing the shots ring out. "LYDS!" he called to the screen.

"Watch now, as she is abused by one of her Johns..."

Another scene played out. In this one, a particularly vile customer had her bent over the bed, a foreign object clearly forced into her rectally. She was being choked to death, her head bouncing off the headboard like a basketball.

"**NO! MAKE IT STOP!**" Beetlejuice roared, his voice becoming louder.

"I waited this long to show him these scenes," Adam gloated. "These are the scenes he'll have to watch for the rest of the millennium..."

_ Just like I was forced to relive every moment of the deaths of my family, after he killed them,_ he thought.

The final scene played out. Lydia had huge bags under her eyes. She'd shrunken down to skin and bones. There were shining scars all over her arms, from a variety of cuts, burns, and track-marks. Her teeth were grimy and yellow, her hair unwashed for weeks, her fingernails broken and caked in filth. She appeared to be in a bathroom that hadn't been cleaned since the 1960's, soaking in a tub. Though her eyes were wide in horror, she was weeping.

"_**NO!**_" Beetlejuice and Swallowtail called out together: Swallowtail, because he could clearly feel the fluctuation of power emanating from the room, perhaps even from Beetlejuice; Beetlejuice, because he knew the significance of the broken mirror and the filthy piece in her hand.

Blood splattered the view of the screen, as she slit up her wrists and throat. A heart-breakingly weary smile crossed her face as, eyes still open, her body went limp, and the water in the tub turned red, blood gushing from her arteries.

"_**NO!**_" Beetlejuice roared, rage filling his voice as he stared up at Adam. "_**YOU LET THIS HAPPEN!**_"

Then, he saw Swallowtail. One look into that devil's eyes reminded him of his family, taken from him by that monster. It reminded him of the deal, of the torment, of watching his sister die years later, when she was killed during the Witch Craze. It reminded him of the lives he'd destroyed, of the plagues he'd led, of the fun he had in watching mothers weep over their children and children weep over each-other. It reminded him of how he'd controlled others, as Adam had controlled the court proceedings years ago, and Swallowtail had controlled Beetlejuice's fate. It reminded him of Lydia, and how she had so nearly saved him with her pure, sweet, innocent influence. It reminded him of the horrible life he'd watched play out, time and time again, on the screen...

"_**I'LL GET OUT OF HERE, IF IT'S THE LAST THING I DO!**_" Beetlejuice shrieked to the door, eyes glowing yellow, then turning green and serpentine. "_**JUST YOU WAIT, YA COUPLE OF ROTTEN, STINKING ROADKILLED ASSHOLES! I'LL HAVE MY REVENGE ON YOU BOTH! I'LL AVENGE LYDIA, NO MATTER WHAT IT TAKES!**_"

The depths of Beetlejuice's being began to bubble and brew, boiling bile to the surface... and, along with that bile, power he'd never even known he could unleash. It flooded his long-dead veins, marbling him with a verdant hue. It turned the white stripes in his suit a deep bergundy colour. It erupted from his body, like a raging wildfire, crackling and snapping at the souls that swirled around him. "_**YOU LOSERS CROSSED THE WRONG MONSTER! YOU THOUGHT I WAS BAD BEFORE, YOU AIN'T SEEN NOTHIN' YET!**_"

From his back, a pair of wings tore through his jacket, unfurling in all their wretched, horrid glory. His teeth extended into fangs. His red fingertips burst, as talons shot out. His shoes warped into extremely pointed-toed boots, concealing his talons. His hair spiked into hundreds of horns. The power surged even more.

Adam backed away, awestruck. "This is impossible!" he exclaimed, sounding breathless. "No amount of power has ever worked in that room! It's a void! That's why we use it for that particular purpose!"

Swallowtail inched down the corridor. "This was your mistake. Your mess. You must clean it up, alone." Secretly, he was on his way to Titan, to find Juno. Beetlejuice's surrogate mother was the only being he knew, who could possibly find a way to stop this.

Beetlejuice was laid to rest. Betelgeuse, the dark denizen of this being's innermost recesses of diabolical power, surged to life. "_**IT'S SHOWTIME, MOTHER-FUCKERS!**_" he roared, his voice sounding throughout the room and the corridor.

Betelgeuse took flight, and appeared before the door. With a wicked, deformed smirk, he reached out. The barrier in the doorway dangerously warped as Betelgeuse's power surged out to it, ravaging the curse like a tsunami crashing against a shoreline. Finally, with an explosion that knocked out all the lights, tore up the floor and ceiling, and left a huge crater in the wall, Betelgeuse stepped out of the room.

Emerald power spread from Betelgeuse's eyes, filling Adam. His skin bubbled and crawled, and he shrieked in pain, clawing at it. The bubbling got worse, and his body seemed to bulge. "_**POP goes the weasel,**_" Betelgeuse mused, as an explosion of maggots, beetles and leeches burst Adam's ethereal form, like a caldera exploding under too much volcanic pressure.

"_**If Lyds goes down, EVERYTHING goes down,**_" he growled, stalking down the corridor, which warped with the souls of the damned. Hands and faces writhed within the walls, spewing blood and bile. Fire shot from the defunct sprinklers, and the smoke-detectors screamed with the wailing of the Hellbound wretches on Death Row, from all eternity past and present...

_On Titan..._

Swallowtail stepped through the mirror, and onto Titan. Trudging through the sand, marveling at the appearance of trenches with signs and signals, he wondered what being could so organize the home of the sandworms. There even seemed to be a huge downtown sector, with towering skyscrapers. A sandworm dug up beside him, and motioned to a harness on his back, as if to say, 'Get on'.

Swallowtail climbed onto the sandworm, and was taken for a wild ride through dirt and sand. "Last stop: Department of Sandworm Affairs for Titan," a raspy voice echoed through a box near the sandworm's head. Swallowtail leapt off, and walked inside.

After waiting for what felt like an eternity, his number came up on the sign. Swallowtail approached the Receptionist. "I need to see Juno," he explained.

A door opened before Swallowtail, and the sandworm's head motioned toward it. Shrugging, Swallowtail opened the disembodied door...

... and stepped straight into Juno's office.

Juno's eyes widened, when she saw Swallowtail. "Last I saw of you, you were being punished for making that deal with Beetlejuice," she said, somehow retaining her cynicism in spite of her awe.

"We have a huge problem, Juno," Swallowtail said. "Betelgeuse has lost control, and is on a rampage.

Juno swallwed her cigarette, coughing it through the wound in her throat. "I had a feeling this might happen, but not so soon," she admitted. "How long's it been, a couple months?"

"Seven years on Earth," Swallowtail said. "We must go, now. There is no time to lose. I'll explain on the way."

"Well, how bad is it?" Juno asked, her hands quivering as she poured some scotch in a huge convenience-store mug.

"He's got his wings back," Swallowtail replied. "And, his power's green."

Within a quarter of a second, the glass had crashed to the floor. Within another thirty seconds, after implementing her plan for her absence from her bureaucratic society, Juno was following Swallowtail back to the Neitherworld, praying they would get there in time...


	4. Paint It Black

Crossed the Line

a Beetlejuice fanfiction

A/N: Thanks for everyone who read and reviewed, and a special thanks to the one who got the references to the original script. Your fandom is appreciated, and it's nice to see someone else who gets it, lol.

Four: Paint it Black...

_... until our debts are clear,_

_we will live in fear..._

- Repo! The Genetic Opera

_Betelgeuse..._

Possessed by the power sparking through his system, fueled by the inferno of fury he felt from centuries of unresolved issues and the pain he watched Lydia endure, Betelgeuse stood in the Waiting Room, a warped, distorted version of the ghoul Lydia once knew. If only she could see him now, she might... run for her life, in pure terror. No matter; nothing else mattered, anymore, except the wrathful compulsion for revenge on everyone and everything: living, dead, _and_ undead.

Betelgeuse looked around at the other souls. They were pathetic. He'd tormented far hardier souls in Hell. To his surprise, the witch-doctor was back. How many times had that particular shaman been there before? It was almost like he was a frequent tourist. Betelgeuse zoomed in on him first, remembering the time the witch-doctor had shrunken his head. "_**So, you like to play head-games, do ya?**_" Betelgeuse asked. As his wicked smirk curled on his deformed face, the witch-doctor grabbed his own skull, shrieking in pain and fear. None of the Loa were at his disposal here, and he doubted they could stand up to this monster's raw power.

The witch-doctor's head contorted into a chess-board. Piece by piece, Betelgeuse took the thoughts in the sorcerer's head, plucked them up, snapped them like twigs, and set them on fire. "_**CHECK-MATE, BITCH!**_" he screamed, a laughter almost as painful as the agony he could wreak escaping his cracked, bleeding, wormy lips. The spirit's head reformed, a blank expression on it's face: Betelgeuse had completely destroyed the man's mind. "_**I'd say ya look deep in thought, but I know first-hand just how EMPTY YOUR HEAD IS!**_" he gloated, turning his head slowly on it's neck to examine the other frightened spirits. Ms. Argentina buzzed for the security, trembling as the ceiling began to drip molten lead.

Thirty heavily-armed, burly angels stampeded into the Waiting Room, prepared to unleash the power of Hell upon anyone or anything that was tormenting the souls before their time. Betelgeuse flashed his jagged, warped metallic spikes that were now his teeth. "_**Oh, did you punks want some, too?**_" he asked, twisting their wings into fiery serpents. "_**LET'S GET OLD TESTAMENT IN THIS MOTHER-FUCKER!**_"

The angels screamed at the tops of their lungs, as they were bitten repeatedly by the serpents. Locusts spewed from their mouths and crawled into their eye-sockets, burrowing through them. Their skin was wracked by extreme leprousy, spewing pus from gaping wounds. Their guts swelled, and their thighs were rotten to the bones. They collapsed on a heap of fire and brimstone, as the floor grumbled under the strain of a huge sink-hole that threatened to cave in at any moment.

A brilliant flash of light signalled that the now-missing angels had been recalled to Heaven, to be repaired. Betelgeuse was satisfied with his work on the angels, but he was far from done. The sink-hole widened, and the entire Waiting Room caved in, flooding with lava.

Betelgeuse stood outside the smouldering building that had once housed the Department. A snarl grew from his face, and his eyes lit up again with green lightning. The building exploded, sending chunks of enchanted material flying through the Neitherworld. "_**They're ALL on my shit-list,**_" he grumbled, the sky staining a deep, fetid reddish-brown. "_**Wait'll they get a load of ME!**_"

Jacques looked up at the sky through his window, marvelling at the appearance of green eyes in the rotten void of stratusphere above. "_Sacre' boo!_" he exclaimed in a hushed tone. "Ze sky, she is more forboding zen usual!"

Ginger cringed, all eight of her knees knocking together. "We oughtta take a nice, long trip away from... you know... da entoia Neithawoild," she said quietly. "Somethin' tells me this ain't no ordinary storm..."

_Barbara & Adam Maitland..._

Blissfully ignorant of the goings on in the Neitherworld, Barbara and Adam returned to their new home. They had enjoyed their new-found freedom, traveling the world and picking new places to haunt every year. This time, however, they had returned to their original home on a whim.

The changes to the sleepy little town had surprised Barbara and Adam greatly. There were three multiplexes, a community college, and what seemed like a Starbucks on every corner. The people had changed, too: since the fiasco that had happened so many years ago, they were no longer on guard for the slightest shadows they had seen out of the corners of their eyes. Now, the crowd were all shallow, pretentious, arrogant college types who spent their days cruising around the downtown area and playing on campus, and their nights partying at any number of raves.

"You don't think Charles and his friends-" Barbara began.

"-were able to convince the town to make all these changes, some of which have nothing to do with business, in as little time as we've been gone?" he asked, smiling at his wife's impulsive accusation. "No, dear, I don't think his friends are _that_ influential. Besides, don't you remember? Charles gave that life up. This must have happened on it's own."

Barbara entered the house first... and almost regretted the decision, for two reasons: while the decorations were so much colder and tackier than they were even when the Deetzes lived there, the main reason was that the currently-vacant house was filled with an oppressive presence that frightened her. "Adam," she called back, "M-maybe we shouldn't stay here..."

Adam followed Barbara in, initially unconcerned. "Why not? Did someone redecorate it again-" This time, it was Adam's turn to be cut off in mid-sentence. "Yeah, I don't think we should stay now, either..."

Suddenly, the door slammed shut. Barbara and Adam tried to escape, but the doors and windows became white-hot. They ran up the stairs, as the floor and steps threatened to crumble beneath them! When they reached the attic, they were shocked at the way it changed... it looked like an enormous, gaping maw, with a slimy tongue for a doormat and giant stalactites and stalagmites of teeth, caked in filthy tar. Deep within the stinking darkness of the giant monster-mouth that had once been their attic, the sound of chattering teeth and clicking heels could be heard. "Well... in we go," Adam said, steeling himself for whatever may await them inside. He was sure they wouldn't be adversely affected by it: after all, they were dead, right? Nothing could hurt them...

... right?

The sight that welcomed them into their attic was surprisingly normal... if you don't count the blood dripping from the crevices of the walls, the shattered shards of glass from the mirror, and the cowering skeleton and giant tap-dancing spider. "SACRE' BOO!" the skeleton cried, cowering deeper into the corner. "Do not 'urt us!"

Barbara approached the skeleton and spider cautiously. She'd heard Lydia talk about them before, when she was younger: Jacques LeLean and Ginger, the tap-dancing spider, friends of her's from the Neitherworld. Of course, that was ages ago, when she still visited the land of the dead, and called this house 'home'. "Jacques? Ginger? I'm Barbara Maitland, and this is my husband, Adam. I'm sure Lydia mentioned us. What happened, here?"

Ginger leapt out of the corner, onto Adam's head, quivering. Her eight eyes were, for want of a phrase that isn't a pun, 'bugging out'. "It's HORRIBLE!" she started. "Beetlejuice's gone CRAZY! I... we... we ain't nevah seen him like this!"

Jacques stood and slowly approached, his yellow eyes barely as bright as embers. "Byateljeuse, 'e ees more powerful zen eveir! 'E's been tearing up ze Neizherworld, like she ees so much teeshue papeir!"

"I'm so sorry, and please don't take this the wrong way," Adam replied, "But I can hardly understand what you're saying..."

Jacques and Ginger explained everything. By the time they were done, Adam was holding Barbara, consoling her. "We... we had no idea," he said, shocked for so many reasons. For one, he couldn't understand how her parents could do what they had done to her, and doomed her to the life she'd been forced to live. For another, he was surprised at the fact that he actually felt bad for Beetlejuice... he knew this was the ghost who had made their unlives miserable, but he also knew what kind of torment happened to the spirits in the Lost Souls room. What really surprised both he and Barbara most, was the fact that Beetlejuice loved Lydia so much, he unleashed the full extent of his power to set right what had gone so horribly awry.

Barbara straightened up, tears streaming down her face. "Is... is there... anything we can do... to help?" she asked. That was why Adam loved Barbara so much: the sweet grace of her spirit pushed her to do more, and better, especially for others. In a way, she was a lot like Lydia had been, when she was just a teenager.

Jacques shook his skull sadly. "Ah do not sink zat zhere ees anyzhing you can do," he said mournfully.

Suddenly, Ginger leapt down to the floor, clicking her heels on the hardwood. "I may have an idear!" she exclaimed. "We gotta travel to Lydia. C'mon!"

Seeing no alternative, Barbara, Adam, Ginger and Jacques left the house through the upstairs window. "All we have for an address is the one we picked up on our way to Barbados last year," Barbara stipulated.

"Ees better zen nothing, non?" Jacques asked.

In agreement, they left in the direction of New York... as an ominous blood-red storm began to roll in, accompanied by green lightning, and thunder that sounded like the barking of the hounds of Hell...

_Lydia..._

"... I feel like you've made real progress, Ms. Deetz," Lydia's therapist, a dignified, classy, attractive woman in her forties, explained to her on the way out. "You should be very proud of yourself. Not many young women could conquer the trials you've had to face."

Lydia smiled a small, timid smile. "Thanks, Dr. Weissman," she said in a somewhat soft, slightly quiet voice. "I really feel like I have a new lease on life. I have a good job, I have a place to live in a decent neighborhood, and I've even started going out with friends, and dating other guys. It's all thanks to your help."

Dr. Weissman patted Lydia's shoulder. "No, dear, you have yourself to thank. If you didn't have such strength of character, you wouldn't have been able to make it, no matter what I would have tried. You're the real heroine, here."

Lydia's cute little smile grew with the compliments of her therapist. "So, when do I see you next?" she asked.

Dr. Weissman consulted her iPhone. "I think we can start scheduling your appointments a little further apart. Say, same time next month?"

Lydia nodded in agreement. "Sure. How much do I owe?"

Dr. Weissman looked to the side. "Your father came by. You're all caught up on your payments."

Lydia's gaze was fixed on the floor. It had been years since her mother kicked her out. Her father may not have liked it, but as usual, he was too cowardly to speak up. Dr Weissman's voice cut through her traumatic memories. "Don't you think it's time to let him back into your life?" she asked.

Lydia's voice got even quieter. "... maybe... see you in a month."

As Lydia left, Dr. Weissman shook her head. "What kind of fucked-up family did she come from?!" she wondered.

As Lydia drew the pinstriped black and white jacket closer around herself in the stiff wind, she barely noticed that she was being followed by a giant dressed in all white, and a smaller, sickly-looking woman with a scarf around her stoma... that is, until the woman walked around in front of her, and stopped her. "Lydia Deetz?" she asked, her raspy voice almost as jarring as the smell of acrid smoke pouring from her mouth and throat.

"What's it to you?" she asked, finally noticing the huge, hulking figure behind her. "Aren't you a little old to be rolling people?"

Juno took a drag from a cigarette that, somehow, magically appeared in her hand. "Listen, I don't have time for the attitude," she replied in her usual deadpan manner. "We ain't here to roll ya, sweetheart. We gotta talk about an old friend of yours... somebody you forgot."

Lydia took a step to her left side, getting closer to the building. She could now see the massive man who was behind her, dressed in what almost looked like a coat of feathers. "What kind of game do you think you're playing?" she asked, her heartbeat speeding up with her apprehension. She shoved her hand into the right pocket of her jacket, hoping she still had her straight-razor. "I never forget my friends."

Juno was about to speak, until Swallowtail lifted a hand to silence her. "This is getting us nowhere," he told her in his deep, booming voice. "Come with us."

Lydia screamed and slashed at the gargantuan man with her razor... which broke as it struck his alabastair skin. "WHAT DO YOU WANT WITH ME?!" she asked, starting to panic. _Nobody_ could have broken a razor on their _skin_! He didn't even have a scratch on him! "What... what are you people?!" she asked.

Instead of answering, swallowtail picked Lydia up and hailed a cab. A beaten-up wreck pulled up beside them, smoke billowing from inside. He gently tossed Lydia in, and waited for Juno to get in beside her, before he squeezed inside, too.

At first, the crowd surrounding Lydia was surprised to see her extreme reaction to just one grungy-looking homeless man. From the way she was talking, it sounded like she saw two different people there. Then...

... nothing, because Lydia Deetz seemed to disappear from the sidewalk, and the crowd walked past the blank space on the sidewalk and the hazard-riddled taxi at the curb... almost as if she didn't even exist to them...

_Betelgeuse..._

Betelgeuse hovered in the midst of the cloud, his serpentine eyes superimposed on the cloud. Green lightning flew from his body, striking vehicles and sewer-grates, sending plumes of red fire billowing high into the air. The ground shook, splitting into fragments, crumbling the monuments to human ego that had arisen over the decades. Mutated, demonic lampreys swarmed the air and the ground and the people screamed in horror, as the parasites ate their way into their skin and burrowed into their brain, further transmutating into one-eyed centipedes with suckers for mouths and plates for teeth. People ran shrieking in all directions, watching their beloved town crumble before their very eyes; not for long, however, as tornadoes touched down, sweeping them into the air, only to land in huge metal contortions that grew up in the place of trees that had burned to ash in the explosions.

The monstrous magnate descended just below the cloud, his roaring laughter rending the air with it's grating sound. "_**A MONUMENT TO THE GREED AND AVARICE OF THESE WRETCHED FOOLS,**_" he mused.

Lighting upon the mayor's head, Betelgeuse tap-danced on his head, piercing deep into his skull with his talons. "_**I DREAM OF JEANNIE, WITH HER DARK BLACK HAIR!**_" he crowed, cackling wildly. If the Devil would delight in the agony of his... his... his Lydia, then why not give him a _real_ party? "_**IF THE DEVIL DANCED A TWO-STEP, DARLING, HE'D HAVE A BALL IN MIND!**_" he sang, as he called forth the corpses from the cemeteries and what was left of the town itself, to dance a danse macabre through the downtown area. "_**NOBODY'S GONNA RAIN ON MY PARADE, BUT ME!**_" he screeched, leading the morbid menagerie through a storm of viscera and entrails, which was occasionally combined with bowling-ball-sized flaming hailstones.

Things were going from bad to worse...


	5. And I Know I Can't Take It Back

Crossed the Line

a Beetlejuice fanfiction

A/N: Thanks, everybody, for bearing with my long absence. Due to my current assignment, I can't promise to make regular updates, but I can promise to make updates whenever I have free time.

Five: And I Know I Can't Take it Back...

_... outside, in the cold distance,_

_a wildcat did prowl..._

_Two riders were approaching,_

_the wind began to howl..._

- All Along the Watchtower

_Lydia..._

"For the last time," Lydia said, punctuating her words with a hard anger that belied the frazzled state of her nerves, "Who are you freaks, and what do you want with me?!"

The driver of the cab popped his eyes into the back of his head, where two gaping holes sat. "Hurtful!" he said in a gruff voice. "We got feelin's too, y'know! We were human, once! Maybe ya wanna show a little courtesy?!"

Swallowtail smacked the driver's head. "Watch where you're going," he warned, as the driver was careening off-road, toward a glittering mirrored office-building. The driver shrieked like Jamie Lee Curtis in the 'Halloween' movies, and cranked the steering-wheel so hard, Lydia thought it would break! Instead, the wheel bent to a painful degree, as did the cab, snaking it's way back onto the road.

"Okay, before you three get me killed, what the Hell is going on?!" she asked, kicking the driver's seat. "STOP THIS CAR!"

The car came to a screeching halt. The driver looked back, his face half-melted, tire-tracks marring his uniform. "We're here anyways," he rasped through a crushed larynx.

As if the cab had never been there in the first place, it disappeared in a puff of smoke. Lydia was stuck looking around at the Neitherworld... which looked more like the nether regions of Dante's vision of Hell than the ridiculous caricature it had become when Lydia rejected Betelgeuse the first time, and they exorcised him back to the waiting-room. "What's going on?!" Lydia cried, shrinking back and down. "Am I having a flashback?! Is this Hell?! Please, God, come on! I was just starting to make progress, my shrink told me so!"

Juno smacked Lydia, with a smack hard enough to wake the dead (pardon the pun). "Listen, Deetz," she said, her acrid breath a none-too-refreshing way to snap out of her panic, "THIS PLACE used to be a place where the dead could live out all the fantasies they never got to experience in life! It ain't quite Heaven, it sure ain't Hell. It's about as close to Purgatory as you can get... or, it was, before Betelgeuse broke outta the Lost Souls room!"

"Wait, what?" Lydia asked, clearly confused. "Beetle-what?! Who would drink beetle-juice?!"

Swallowtail shook his head. In fact, his entire body began to vibrate wildly, until the mortal form was burned off by his angelic form's radiance. "I should just force the memories back into her mind," Swallowtail grumbled.

"You know we can't do that!" Juno replied. "There's rules we gotta follow! Beetlejuice couldn't even get away with breaking the rules! Look where that got him!" Juno looked around at the wasteland - the apocalyptic horror, - that had once been the home to so many friends and coworkers... and, had she the ability to cry, she would. Instead, she bowed her head and slumped her shoulders, the weight of what seemed like centuries of looking the other way settling on her like a blacksmith's anvil.

Swallowtail watched two halves of a spirit run past, sprouting flaming tentacles from each of the open wounds on both hemispheres of the body. He clapped an enormous hand down on Juno's small, frail back. "You shall, at the very least, explain to her the story," he told them, "And I surely may show her the effects of Betelgeuse's power, unleashed upon the world..."

_Betelgeuse..._

A baby cried. There was no mother to pick it up and soothe it.

Far above, seated on a throne of warped and contorted corpses, set on fire and occasionally spewing lava, Betelgeuse sat. He was... not bored, per se'; watching the buildings come to life and skate around town on cars, splattering human bowling-pins, while forcing women to strip their skin off their bodies and shove it down the throats of geriatric men who were busy stabbing each-other with their walkers and canes, jumping each-other in old hospital wheelchairs... this was the stuff his putrid little excuse for a heart festered for. It was sadness. "_**Wonder what's on the tube,**_" he mused, twisting zoo-animals into a hollow, puree'd mess and plugging them into a power-plant. While the pieces writhed and quivered, a screen appeared. In it, Lydia was in the Neitherworld, having her sickeningly-sweet-16th birthday party. For a moment, the whirlwind of wretched wickedness settled down. Betelgeuse's body lost most of it's hideous bone spikes. His blazing emerald eyes, simmering with lightning, calmed for a moment, and a small tear smudged his face. "Those were the good ol' days," he murmured, using an imaginary clicker to change the channel to other times he shared with Lydia.

From the first time they met, to the first time she hugged him, to the last time they held hands... Betelgeuse watched all the happy, sad, and adventurous moments he'd committed to memory in her life. He briefly considered letting the town return to normal, maybe even cleaning up the Neitherworld...

Then, the picture crackled and, all on it's own, it switched back to the images of her torment and near-death experiences. It focused on the trial, on her tears, on her blood... and then, on Johann's face, contorted with perverse gratification at the punishment. The spikes erupted from Betelgeuse's skin like shrapnel from a landmine. The roar of his rage rivaled that of an erupting volcano, or an F-5 tornado ripping through a town. "_**THERE'S NO POINT ANYMORE!**_" he bellowed, growing to a leviathan size. The sky began to rain black blood, as flames rippled through the atmosphere. "_**THERE'S NO POINT TO ANY OF IT! SHE WAS EVERYTHING TO ME! SHE WAS EVERYTHING THAT MATTERED, PERIOD! AND NOW, HER LIFE'S BEEN DESTROYED! WHAT'S STOPPING ME FROM DESTROYING THE WORLD?!**_"

_Lydia..._

... heard the whole story, from the moment Stephen made his deal with a devil, to the time Beetlejuice spent in the Lost Souls room, exorcised. "So... I had a whole secret life?" she asked, astonished. "And, that... that poor soul... he was my...?"

"Best friend, confidante, partner in crime... in time, maybe he hoped he'd become more," Juno replied. "Yeah, you two were thick as thieves, before Johann got his revege... sick son of a bitch even forced Betelgeuse to watch ya suffer. He saw all your pain, all your anguish, all your tears... he saw it, and..."

"... and something made him so angry, a power surged within him that was too much for anyone to hold back," Swallowtail explained. "Now, see why you must get involved..."

In the black, swirling smoke Swallowtail had drawn from the smouldering remains of nearby monuments, a flare of yellow light appeared. Through the light, the smoke began to form into definitive lines and shading, producing a picture. Lydia saw the carnage Betelgeuse had wreaked, the danse-macabre, the violence he literally embodied as he grew.

"It's worse than we thought," Swallowtail told Juno, as Betelgeuse marched his way toward New York, his feet smashing giant, blazing craters in his wake. "We cannot afford to wait for Lydia to regain her senses. Juno..." Swallowtail said, morphing into a dark, armoured titan, "_**I must face him, myself...**_"

Swallowtail's enormous wings unfurled, a portal opened overhead, and up he flew.

Juno was about to leave. "Have a nice life, kid," she said. "I'll drop you off at your place."

Lydia grabbed her by her arm. "No," she said, her face steeled with resolve. "I... I have to stop him."

"Kid, your heart's in the right place," Juno began, "But-"

"NO!" Lydia shouted. "You listen to me. I know the past few years have been Hell for me, but it looks like it hasn't been too much of a picnic for him, either. I may not remember him, but by God, I can't let him take out his suffering on innocent people. If ending his pain is the only way to stop him, well... I'm not too reluctant about that."

Juno shook her head. "Kid, I can't let you do this!" Juno growled. "Swallowtail's one of the most powerful fallen angels there is, and he couldn't take Beetlejuice, back when you two first met! It's gonna take all he's got, just to stall Beetlejuice!"

Lydia smacked Juno. "THINK ABOUT IT!" she screamed. "HE FEELS THIS WAY, BECAUSE OF ME! HE PUT ME IN THAT SITUATION, AND I PUT HIM IN THE SITUATION HE WAS IN! WE'RE BOTH TO BLAME! DON'T YOU SEE?!" She drew Juno up, lifting her like a sandbag. "He won't hurt me, because he loves me. He never wanted me to suffer, and he damned sure wouldn't hurt me, himself!"

Juno kicked a huge pile of solid ember to ashes. "You better be right, girl," she said, "'Cause if you ain't, it won't be on MY head..."

Juno took Lydia to what was supposed to be the Maitlands' house... and it was, except that the inside looked like the shredded remains of a shark's entrails, and the outside was surrounded by an amber force-field. "What the...?!" Juno wondered.

Barbara came out of what was supposed to be the kitchen with Jacques. "It's Betelgeuse," she said. "This place is the one place he couldn't bear to destroy."

Lydia rushed upstairs. "I don't know what's going on," she called back down, "But something is calling me to the attic!"

Upstairs, she had managed to get through the door. She opened it slowly, peeking in first, expecting to see more of a disgusting mess. Instead, she saw the attic, just like she had left it, pristine in it's preservation. Slowly, she approached Adam's model town. She looked down at it. "What's so special about this town?!" she wondered...

She saw Dante's Inferno Room, where she heard weeping inside. One of the little succubi inside came out, trembling, covered in a tattered raincoat. "T-Tell us... you remember," she pleaded. Lydia shook her head slowly, scanning the rest of the town. There was Betelgeuse's grave. "De-Ja Vu," she murmured, seeing the toppled tree. Then, she looked where there should have been another window... "Deadly Vu," she whispered, seeing the picture of them together, framed with a solid gold frame. She lightly touched the gem in the middle, and Lydia's ring popped out.

Tentatively, she reached out to grab it. Something was screaming in her head to put the ring on... and, she did. Suddenly, all the memories started coming back. It was like they were siphoned from the ring itself! Lydia dropped to her knees and wept openly, her tears dropping on the bare wood of the floor, springing small blue flowers to life.

Lydia Deetz stepped downstairs, a tattered old tablecloth with a spider-web pattern over her arm. "Everyone who's going with me, you'd better hold on tight," she said. Jacques, Ginger, Juno, Barbara, and Adam all joined hands in a circle, and shut their eyes tightly. Lydia stared out the window and, for the first time in ages, her voice rang out, clear and loud.

_Knowing That I Should be Wary,_

_Still, I Venture Someplace Scary!_

_Ghostly Hauntings, I Turn Loose!_

_BETELGEUSE!_

_BETELGEUSE!_

_BETELGEUSE!_

Betelgeuse pointed at the Empire State Building. Without even looking at it, the building shattered into pieces that shot out for miles around, as if they had each been fired from assault-rifles at the same exact time. With a blink of his eyes, thousands of smaller buildings were swept away in a wildfire that blew like a gale-force wind. The ground split into myriad fault-lines, as magma filled the air itself. The asphault became boiling water. Ice and rock pierced everything in their way, flying perfectly horizontally.

Swallowtail appeared in the sky, shrouded by a pitch-black cloud. "_**STEVEN!**_" Swallowtail called, drawing his flaming sword, "_**I'VE COME TO END THIS, ONCE AND FOR ALL!**_"

Betelgeuse parted the sword into three sections, tied them together, and sent the flames back on their wielder. "_**ABOUT TIME YOU SHOWED UP. BRING IT ON! MAYBE, FINALLY, I'LL FIND SOME PEACE!**_"

Swallowtail became a beam of billions of watts of neon light, stabbing through the wasteland. Betelgeuse formed a shield out of rotting darkness, into which Swallowtail stabbed. As the darkness dissolved, the brilliant missile was being eaten away. Swallowtail landed, holding onto his leg as it began to putrefy.

Swallowtail summoned an army of light-eagles to attack Betelgeuse, while Betelgeuse conjured a horde of stone bears, breathing toxic flames. The eagles exploded, only for the bears to be taken out by a giant tumbling beam of energy... which was followed by billions of other beams of light. They smashed into the earth and seas, exploding and vaporizing everything in their paths. Swallowtail breathed a sigh of relief, as a cloud of dust and condensation spewed up in his face. At last, the nightmare was over. Lydia Deetz wouldn't have to put herself in danger, after all...

... until a gravelly laugh, which seemed to echo from all around Swallowtail, cut through the haze. In no time, Swallowtail was sent careening to the ground, where he felt himself pinned. The sick feeling of tearing and shattering on his back signaled his wings being torn from his body, and Swallowtail shrieked in agony. The points were stabbed through Swallowtail's back, and out the other side. It felt as if bones shattered into tiny splinters, and carved their way through his body, making entire circuits before they crashed into each-other and imploded, causing deep craters. Swallowtail felt the sensation of vomit spewing out of his gaping maw, which was nearly ripped clean off by the power of his projectile puking. At the same time, he felt the sensation of being suffocated, and clawed at his neck at invisible hands. The world around him became dark, and crumbled apart, collapsing in on itself like a black hole. In the center stood Betelgeuse, cackling like mad. "_**JOHANN WAS RIGHT!**_" Betelgeuse lamented. "_**I'M THE REASON WHY LYDIA WAS TORMENTED! I'M THE REASON WHY SHE DIED SO MANY TIMES! I'M THE UNIVERSE'S WORST SCREW-UP! IF I'M GOING DOWN, WHY SHOULDN'T I TAKE THE UNIVERSE DOWN WITH ME?!**_"

Swallowtail couldn't respond. Not only could he not physically respond; he didn't know how to respond in a way Betelgeuse's deep, all-consuming grief and sorrow couldn't counter. There was only one response that could save them now, and he didn't think it was coming...

"BECAUSE, YOU KNOW I WOULD BE REALLY DISAPPOINTED TO SEE MY BEST FRIEND COME TO THIS OVER ME!"

Betelgeuse looked over... and saw Jacques, Ginger, Adam, Barbara, and Juno, and...

"... _**Lyds?!**_" Betelgeuse asked, looking at Lydia Deetz, who was looking as good as she ever did, dressed in her black unitard and red spider-web dress. "_**No... NO! THIS MUST BE A TRICK... t-tell me it's a trick... please...**_"


End file.
